Saturday, July 28, 2012

Whenever the US warns there is an imminent danger of violence, even of a massacre or atrocities, it pays to take notice. Such predictions seem to have an almost uncanny knack of turning out to be accurate. So recent US “concerns” could mean bad news.

The world is just getting over the shock of accounts of massacres emerging from Syria, like the one in al-Houla at the end of May this year. The novelty of the outrage lies in the astonishing fact that from the mainstream conservative German daily FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Christian clergy, a shock wave went through major Western media. New grizzly details of the plot were uncovered, namely that known loyalist families, including dozens of women, children and the elderly, who denied support to the insurgents fell victim to the carnage.

According to intercepted rebel phone calls, massacres and other incidents are being perpetrated with the intention of later putting the blame on the government.

But what happened on Thursday seems to be yet another remarkable pointer as to how far the US is ready to go: "This is the concern, that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that's what the regime appears to be lining up for," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said – and the news spread quickly around the world. The announcement raises global fears as much as disgust, since several recent official international gatherings on the Syrian issue were preceded by mass killings on the ground, whether massacres or house-to-house fighting in major Syrian towns, with the brunt of the blame duly attributed to the Syrian government by the usual suspects in Western mainstream media in the usual media hype style. It seems as if the Kuwaiti “incubator plot” of the “Desert Storm” operation and the Serbian “concentration camps” cast their shadows any time the global community is involved in decision-making in US-claimed areas of interest.

Turkey is directing the rebel fight against Bashar Assad, after setting up a secret base on its border with Syria, with help from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It devises tactics and supplies weapons for the uprising, according to Reuters sources.

Turkey has warned that it may take action against Kurdish rebels operating in the north of Syria. Middle East expert Franklin Lamb believes this could finally lead to Turkish and NATO intervention in the country.